Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Starz Toronto, now that Starz doesn't own it, is changing its name to Arc Productions. (There's a surprise.) And the facility will continue being a job shop.

But the managers know that's a self-limiting role in Cartoonland: You do the work, and some other entity makes the money. Sooo ...

Arc Productions is ... looking to do more proprietary production, where it holds rights to projects it completes. The studio has just unveiled plans for a stereoscopic CG animated movie with the working title OZ3D ...

Smart move, producing your own stuff. And if Disney can make a mint producing cartoons from old, public domain fairy tales, others have a shot at reaping profits from old public domain Frank L. Baum books.

The stampede of VFX shops and animation sub-contractors doing their own movies has only just started. And if a few of them are successful, the stampede will get bigger. After all, there's only so much wire removal, water effects, and compositing needed in any given live-action film, and there isn't a lot of money in it. So making your own hit long-form cartoon -- assuming you can figure out how to do it -- is a natural and obvious way to go.